Cost analysis is fundamental in business management. Reports and figures contribute to forming an overview of the status and performance of activities also to optimise them.
"This is a job that needs an investigative approach and of course you have to love numbers", explained Simone Pizzamiglio, Head of the PIUSI Cost Office. "You need to compare thousands of values, look for anomalies and crunch a great deal of data".
The Cost Office is located on the third floor of the PIUSI Office Building. It is in the middle of the management area in more ways than one. The analyses from here go out to support many strategic functions in the Purchasing Office, the Technical Office, Administrative Management and, obviously, in General Management.
The Office performs many activities all related to numerical data analysis. Pizzamiglio added:
"When you think of the Cost Office your mind immediately goes to Management Control. But in PIUSI it is actually one step before that".
Q: What does the PIUSI Cost Office do?
Q: "Several things. First of all, we analyse and interpret over 15 thousand codes a month to check and define product costs. We take the breakdown of the entire bill of materials into account and this is a huge amount of data.
We observe the data with a critical and careful eye, double-checking everything, to spot trend and fluctuations over time, assess whether there are significant variations and pinpoint any anomalies that may arise from a careful examination. This allows us to generate alerts which we pass on to the respective offices, using reports structured in different formats. Last but not least, we look for opportunities for optimisation and improvement, which are very important where possible.
Finally, in collaboration with the Technical Department, we actively monitor management costs and technical project development to optimise economic investment".
Q: Would you say that the Cost Office has a cross-departmental role?
Q: "Absolutely. We collaborate with the entire company structure. Our role of monitoring, interpreting, analysing and controlling data and flows puts us actively on several fronts. We can say we are a sort of last bastion, meaning that, as Cost Office, we are responsible for detecting anomalies, informing the respective offices proactively to correct any mistakes, providing reports based on reliable and useful information to the various functions for monitoring the results.
Q: How many people work in the Cost Office?
Q: "Just Antonella and myself. We both have plenty of experience in PIUSI in different areas. I come from production as Head of the Time, Methods and Cost Office. The cost analysis activities were originally concentrated there. With the business development of PIUSI, the Costs Office was split up leading to the analysis of more and more in-depth data. Antonella, who comes from the Technical Office, joined bringing her experience in design with her. She can more easily identify any anomalies arising in the coding processes and management of technical changes to products and projects. Our strength is our dedication to our job and a good dose of investigative spirit. Combined with our knowledge of the product and its process, this allows us to see and understand on the fly whether data, flows or analyses are abnormal compared to the standard and why.
